The present invention relates generally to an automated system and process for tracking paper files and the like, and more particularly to an automatic system and process for tracking and purging file folders in a file storage system having predetermined or limited expansion capacity.
In office environments, although there is a trend toward the paperless office, where files will exist primarily in electronic form, there is continued reliance on paper files and paper file folders, which are generally stored on open shelving units or in filing cabinet drawers. In some environments, such as health care, legal, insurance, and corporate, the number of files and the contents of those files can quickly grow to exceed the capacity of most file systems and the space available for file storage.
The problems of storage and tracking of individual files have generally been addressed by improving the physical storage shelving to make it more compact or to provide some automatic means of file retrieval. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,219,296 discloses an automatic file storage and retrieval apparatus, in which a movable carriage locates and pulls out individual files stored on coded shelving. Although systems like the one described are basically effective, they are expensive and they have a limited capacity. Also, file folders which are inactive and not likely to be needed take up valuable file storage space.
Some large businesses have addressed their growing file storage needs by allocating greater space within their buildings to the file storage function, and even constructing additional buildings for file storage; however this is generally an expensive solution, requiring high construction costs as well as operating and staffing costs.
Another solution has been to move the paper files that will not be needed to an off-site storage facility, where the files are stored on shelving or in cataloged boxes and the like. For example, a typical medical records storage facility associated with a large city hospital might typically include as many as one million patient files, with 450,000 patient files on-site and the remainder in off-site storage. A file can be retrieved from off-site storage when needed by a system of delivery vehicles or other means. The drawback of this method is that retrieval takes time; often there is a delay of several hours or days between the time the recognition is made to retrieve a file and the time the file is received. Also, there is a high cost associated with storage and retrieval of records stored off-site.
Furthermore, there is a problem in classifying which files should be kept on site in primary storage and which files should be sent to the off-site storage facility. This problem has generally been addressed by having a single purging criteria applied to all the files as a whole. Such a purging criteria might be, for example, to remove all files older than a certain cut-off date, the logic being that older files would most likely not be needed for current referrals. Purging criteria based on cut-off dates does not address the common situation in which files older than an arbitrary cut-off date are still needed for various reasons and will need to be retrieved from off-site storage, incurring time delays and high costs.
Another common drawback of conventional filing systems is file section overflow, in which individual filing sections may become overfilled. This results from some file sections filling at a faster rate than other file sections due to an increase in the number of files or an increase in the thickness of individual files due to added content. In these situations, in order to make adequate room for new files within overfilled file sections, a manual process known as back shifting is performed, in which the file contents for several shelf sections are redistributed to make more room in the overfilled sections. Back shifting is a time-consuming, tedious process, which can cause delays in normal filing operations during the time the back shifting is carried out.
Another problem in managing paper files is how to effectively deal with pending requests and multiple pending requests. Oftentimes, an individual file will be requested by several users simultaneously. For example, in the medical field, a new patient""s file will need to be seen by doctors in various medical departments, such as radiology and pathology, as well as administrative departments, such as patient billing. In conventional filing systems, pending file requests are handled by hand-written routing slips, and files are often not re-routed until they are returned to the file shelves. Most existing filing systems do not have a way to deal effectively with routing the requested file to the various users in a time-efficient manner to minimize delays.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art filing systems.
A solution to the problems of prior file storage systems is provided by the present invention, which optimizes the use of available file space by seeking to keep the shelves full or at a predetermined percentage of being full, such as 90-95 percent full, while avoiding the problems associated with overfilled files and back shifting.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a computerized file tracking and purging system which seeks to keep most file sections in a file storage facility nearly full but never overflowing.
It is another object of the present invention to provided a computerized file tracking and purging system which keeps those records which are deemed to be most active within the storage facility and remove or purge the inactive files for removal to off-site or distant storage.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a computerized file tracking and purging system which determines for each file section, hierarchically, which files are most likely to be requested and which files are least likely to be requested.
In accordance with the preferred embodiments of the present invention, the present invention is a computer-implemented shelf manager system for tracking, file maintenance, and file purging in health care, government, legal and other record-intensive environments. This present invention is applicable to file storage situations such as open shelves, mobile shelves, or mechanical shelving systemsxe2x80x94wherever there is a desire to prevent the size of individual file folders from growing beyond the capacity of fixed-capacity shelves. The objects of the present invention are achieved by providing an automated system and process for managing paper files, such as medical records contained in file folders and the like, in a file storage system having predetermined size or limited expansion capacity.
The shelf manager system of the present invention is used advantageously with the filing method known as terminal digit filing, in which a file room or file storage facility is divided in an basically equal number of sections. In the present invention, each file folder is assigned a unique file identifier, which links it to the section in which it will be stored.
The shelf manager system of the present invention includes a computer and a database coupled to the computer for storing sets of data for each file folder, which are linked by means of the file folder""s unique identifier. The kinds of information stored in the database for each file folder include, as a minimum, the identifier, the physical thickness of the file folder, and the storage section to which the file folder is assigned. In addition to this information, the file database includes various information related to the file folder""s content. In the case of a medical file folder, for example, the content information will advantageously include the patient""s visit history, disease history, and other information.
Whenever a file folder enters or leaves the file room or file storage facility it is logged-in or logged out through a logging station, which is coupled to the computer. The logging station has the primary purpose of updating the thickness measurement for the file folder. The thickness is determined by measuring the file folder""s weight, ideally on an electronic scale, although it is contemplated that the measurement could also be determined by physical measurement with an electronic caliper. The weight measurement is converted by the computer to an updated thickness measurement by applying an algorithm that relates weight to thickness. At the same time, the total file thickness for that file""s assigned shelf section is recalculated and compared to a user chosen threshold value, usually in the range of 90 to 95 percent. Information related to the file folder""s content is also updated in the computer database, such as patient appointment history
If the total thickness for all file folders within a storage section exceeds the set threshold percentage of the available storage space for the storage section, the purging subroutine is initiated. A set of computer algorithms apply file-usage criteria to each file within that file section to identify some folders for purging within that section. The folders for purging are added to a purge list, which may be printed out to be used as a guide by personnel performing the actual physical purging, usually during the night. The purged files are removed for shipment to off site storage. The purging subroutine identifies just the file folders needed to reduce the total thickness for all file folders below the threshold percentage for that section.
For the current shelf section, the file folders are purged according to the likelihood that certain files will not be requested in the future by applying purging algorithms to the individual files. The purging proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, file folders are purged based on a set of predetermined criteria, such as previous visit history, zip code, disease code, type of exam, and other factors that would be predictive of whether that particular folder would not be requested again. In the second stage, file folders are ranked by the date of last visit.
In alternative embodiments, document image scanning provides multiple copies of pertinent file information to fulfill multiple pending file requests. In another alternative embodiment, the file folders include radio frequency identification tags for passive detection of file folder identification. In a still further alternative embodiment, data from the shelf manager system controls a digital printing press to create direct print color-coded file folders for use with the shelf manager system.